He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

EDIT: Moved to Liveblogs

edited 17th Oct '11 8:21:24 AM by MoeDantes

Head over to the liveblog section please.

EDIT: Found the new liveblogging section. Moving.

From now on let's use this topic as a general Masters discussion.

So, I hear there's a new movie coming up. Any thoughts on that?

edited 17th Oct '11 8:20:50 AM by MoeDantes

Wasnt there already a live-action movie? I vaguely recall that The Nostalgia Critic did a review of it in the past...

There was a movie in 1987, but they're making a new one, called Grayskull: Masters of the Universe.

No word yet on whether the movie will lead to a new animated series.

I hadn't heard of this movie, but considering how Hollywood keeps remaking everything from Transformers to Yogi Bear as movies I should have expected it.

It looks like its caught in the same Development Hell that the Wonder Woman movie is. Big mythological movies are a hard sell these days unless they're pretty grim, which would not work for He-Man.

One thing I hope they do is show the origin of the setting. Most versions just show us He-Man already fighting Skeletor which is OK, but always wondered what the whole deal with Castle Greyskull was, why does it contain such power, why The Sorceress is a prisoner there, why Adam of all people was granted its power, or even just WHO are the Masters of the Universe supposed to be (it's neither the heroes nor the villains, they barely rule parts of one planet!)

I am a fan of all the MOTU series (EXCEPT the awful He-Man in Space one) and I hope that, whatever the approach, they handle it with respect.

The 2002 cartoon attempted to go into the backstory a little bit, but with mixed results and a Broken Base. Some fans really liked the story of how Skeletor came to be, other fans felt it was too generic and not true to the mythos.

Personally the part I really liked was where He-Man is actually a pseudo-reincarnation of King Grayskull. If I were making a new series, I'd drop the whole "secret identity" thing and just have it so Prince Adam is literally becoming a different person when he calls on the power of Grayskull.

As for the new movie, to be honest I don't have high hopes. As you said, they'd have to make it dark and gritty, but if you do that, it's just Conan the Barbarian, not He-Man. As I said in my review, the thing that made He-Man unique was its positive idealism and if you lose that, its not He-Man anymore. The 2002 series already tried a grittier approach, which is part of the reason it created such a Broken Base.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the concepts we associate with He-Man are largely a creation of Filmation, but Filmation doesn't own the IP—Mattel does, and Mattel apparently doesn't understand their own creation.

They should at least make the villains more threatening. I mean, it seems like ALL the villains (in the 83-84 series) were goofy incompetents. I cant think of any villain who seriously posed a threat. As it was, the evil horde from she-ra were much more of a threat.

That was the fault of the rules in place at the time. He-Man specifically could NEVER punch anything alive (which is why he ended up tossing villains into oh-so-convenient mud puddles. He did punch a few robots tho.) The corny edutainment segments at the end was a way to keep the Moral Guardians happy about a show that was basically about mythological beings.

I don't mind a more serious version of MOTU, but never a grim and gritty one.

edited 18th Oct '11 4:56:16 PM by Sijo

Actually, a lot of that stuff was because of Filmation CEO Lou Scheimer (who, incidentally, also voiced several of the characters and actually created Orko), who wasn't just bowing to Moral Guardians—he actually did feel like cartoons should be a way of passing on positive values rather than just being mindless entertainment.

While He-Man was rarely ever shown directly hurting anybody, they sometimes used the same workaround that Batman: The Animated Series did—that is, show him beginning the blow, and then cut to a scene where we see the villains fly across the screen or something. Despite Scheimer's moral views the series could at times be darker than its often given credit for, such as in the afformentioned episode with the Creeping Horak, or "The Problem With Power" where He-Man is tricked into believing that he's killed someone.

I do agree that the Horde are a lot more interesting as villains than Skeletor and his bunch. Skeletor's crew are interesting mainly for the fact that none of them are straight villains, but the Horde are interesting because they're actually effective at their jobs.

edited 18th Oct '11 7:02:32 PM by MoeDantes

And this is why moral guardians ruin everything. Lord, action cartoons without punching and attempting to teach positive values is one of the most moronic things I ever heard of and people who try to use cartoons to teach children values when the cartoon isn't education or aimed at those below age eight are lacking a bit in the sense apartment.

Instead of letting TV babysit and teach children things parents and other guardians in children lives need to get off their asses and teach children things themselves. If the reason they can't is because they don't have time for kids then we shows that get 'positive messages about not having kids you can't take care or you have time for.'

Though to be fair Lou Scheimer's ideals about cartoon's passing on positive morals isn't a bad thing if done in the correct way. I mean in a way that doesn't treat viewers like morons or goldfish and I'm not against cartoons being used as a means to treat children its just that not every cartoon is suited to that task and things end up becoming narmful if a bad job is done.

I'd rather have any story with some sort of moral rather than one that had no point to it whatsoever. Although there are better ways of going about it than having a character preach about the dangers of drugs.

There was an episode of Star Trek Voyager that outlined this actually pretty well. Torres crashed on a planet and the computer records of Voyager's adventures in the shuttle were used by a playwright in a Greek-ish community. He mentioned that his plays were attended by the king/lord of the region and they were about to go to war with a rival country. So he wrote his plays where everyone got along and loved each other, including romance between the actor Janeway and actor Chakotay.

Torres eventually pointed out that you are not going to change some hearts and minds just by showing people getting along. So she helped the playwright change the story so that it dealt with showing mercy to your mortal enemies (a la TOS' "Arena") and thus making a greater impression on the leaders.

I'll second this, and honestly I thought Lou Scheimer had a better idea back in Filmation's Lone Ranger and Zorro cartoons when the end-of-episode segment taught history and geographical facts rather than preaching moral values.

When it came to He-Man specifically I didn't think the morals were so bad and a lot of them were surprisingly apt, thought provoking and done in ways you would never see on TV today—like the episode on Gender equality which begins with Teela ranting about chauvinist Earth societies*

There was in fact only one episode I thought was a real clunker when it came to morals: "The Defection." The episode is about a formerly-evil sorceress who decides she wants to be a good guy and lead He-Man and co in an assault on her former ruler. The problem is, the episode doesn't really do a good job convincing us that the girl (I forget her name) was ever really evil, the conflict mostly consists of people saying they distrust her (often for quite arbitrary reasons) and then listening to her anyway, and the conflict is resolved far too easily. It doesn't help that a moral about "giving people a second chance" is completely redundant in a series where 90% of the episodes are about some character overcoming a bad decision or personal shortcoming.

By the way, for all interested I've decided that I'm going to continue my review series with a write-up about She-Ra: Princess of Power. After that I'll cover the 1986 live-action movie. From there I don't know—I don't actually own the 1990 revival on DVD, so I may skip ahead to the 2002 series, or I may just delay it so I can hunt down the DV Ds. If you all have a preference, let me know.

edited 22nd Oct '11 6:37:07 PM by MoeDantes

I liked the 2002 series. It could have been worse, could have been better, the aesops weren't that bad. What I had a problem with was the inconsistency. The plot and settings were done fairly well, what wasn't consistent was what the characters could do.

Word of God says He-man's strength is always great enough to complete a given task, he just has to apply it the right way. The episodes made a lot more sense with that knowledge but what was Zodak's excuse? One scene he can beat all the bad guys by himself, in another he can't beat one. Why is soandso wounded by Triclop's attacks when those only stunned before? How come so many of the villains can't stand up to Skeletor even if they do a better job than he does against the masters?

(still working on that She-Ra writeup. Probably gonna take awhile as I've been caught up with other things and haven't had time to settle down)

Yeah, Zodak really wasn't well-handled at all. But who I found even worse was Sy-Klone. I actually liked that guy when he first appeared, but then as immediately as the next episode he becomes a stereotype oriental mystic who states the obvious but disguises it with flowery language so he'll hopefully come off as wise and mystical ("bend like the reed" instead of "be flexible" for instance). That was pretty much the point where my initial enthusiasm for the 2002 series wore off.

For all its apparent corniness the original series had many good episodes. My favorite was "The Star Child" where a little alien girl with incredible powers (she puts He-Man out of commission without even trying!) is raised by a couple from two different villages and when they die (offscreen) the two tribes argue over who gets to raise her, which causes her to cry and run away into a dangerous forest. Of course the two tribe elders put aside their differences to save her, proving to her that they care about her and not her powers. They end up sharing custody. So OK that may have all been a sort of allegory for divorce and its effect on children, but I liked the Starchild enough that I forgive it (she looked and acted like a real preteen girl would, not the typical cartoon kid. And seeing He-Man suspended in the air helplessly was priceless. )

Another favorite was the episode (can't remember the title) where Man-At-Arms gets turned to crystal and only Granamyr the King of Dragons can restore him; but he sends He-Man on a quest to cut down the world's oldest tree, which turns out to be a sapient being. The tree even agrees to be cut to save Man-At-Arms, but He-Man (and Teela) cannot bring themselves to kill one person to save another. However the whole thing turned out to be a Secret Test of Character (though the tree may not have known that) and Granamyr restores Teela's father anyway. I liked this episode for having taken on such an unusual topic for a kid's cartoon, and for introducing Granamyr, a character both fearsome and intriguing.

I also tended to like the episodes that focused on Orko, even if he was The Scrappy sometimes. I like it when the joke character proves himself a true hero.

Weren't many of the MOTU episodes written by J Michael Straczynski? That might explain why they were so good despite all odds.

edited 26th Oct '11 4:53:16 PM by Sijo

"The Dragon's Gift." Granamyr also returns in later episodes and even once appears in She-Ra.

I think he really only wrote like two or three episodes, and only in the second season.

I think more animation fans would be interested to know that Paul Dini and Bruce Timm worked on He-Man and She-Ra from the beginning! In fact it's been argued that without He-Man, there might not have ever been a DC Animated Universe (not just for bringing these two together, but also because—hard as it is to believe—He-Man seriously raised the bar for what was acceptable content in television cartoons).

Still working on the She-Ra article. Nothing's stopping me, I'm just having an inspiration crisis at the moment.

Incidentally, another version of my He-Man review is on my blog. Only difference is this one has a rundown of the DVD releases, though it could use some improvement.

Yes, it was "The Dragon's Gift". Thanks. And I do remember Granamyr's second appearance in the show (battling an evil dragon, too!) I don't remember him in She-Ra, but I didn't see that many episodes of that series anyway.

And according to our article on JMS, he wrote 9 He-Man episodes.

Another episode that I remember impressing me was the one (again, can't remember the title) where a wizard sold his soul to a demon(!) in the hopes of earning Teela's love. Now that was something you didn't see on kids' cartoons at the time!! Sure they didn't use the traditional demon designs but still, how they got that one past the censors surprises me. (And some trivia: in this episode, "Evil Itself" shows up; in the Latinoamerican version, they just called it The Devil itself! Not sure if that was a mistake or done on purpose.)

More trivia: the Latin version of the opening credits actually had lyrics![1] Note that for this video they removed Adam's speech (in the actual show the song was in the background.)

edited 26th Oct '11 7:25:48 PM by Sijo

His appearance in She-Ra was near the end of that show's run, IIRC, so its understandible that you haven't seen it—especially since for the longest time the only way to get second season episodes was through bootlegs of recordings made off TV.

The episode where guy sells his soul is "Wizard of Stone Mountain" by the way. What always impressed me is that Malik, the wizard of that episode, actually appears again later and I seem to recall someone actually asking him how things were going at Stone Mountain, making this an early example of continuity in an otherwise non-serialized cartoon.

Does anyone recall or know of any information about an Animation Bump for the original series ep 'Evilseed'? I just recall the animation of his vines attacking and especially his death scene always impressing me.

I remember liking 2002 show as kid, but I'm pretty sure that show was canceled in Finland after the cliffhanger with snakeman guy(checked name, Kobra Khan? Thats... Silly name. Anyway, he had a cobra hood?) freeing snakemen and multiple snake heads guy(King Hissssssssssssssss? Okay, I exaggerated that, but everyone in this series has ridiculous names).

Which is pity since I liked designs of snakemen that had appeared until that point. I liked design of a lot of characters in show actually. Pity it didn't end with story finished.

Time to bump this thread! It looks like Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation is moving along. Today they announced a description of the show along with the cast list.

• Mark Hamill as Skeletor
• Lena Headey as Evil-Lyn
• Chris Wood as Prince Adam / He-Man
• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela
• Liam Cunningham as Man-At-Arms
• Stephen Root as Cringer
• Diedrich Bader as King Randor / Trap Jaw
• Griffin Newman as Orko
• Tiffany Smith as Andra
• Henry Rollins as Tri-Klops
• Alan Oppenheimer as Moss Man
• Susan Eisenberg as Sorceress
• Alicia Silverstone as Queen Marlena
• Justin Long as Roboto
• Jason Mewes as Stinkor
• Phil LaMarr as He-Ro
• Tony Todd as Scare Glow
• Cree Summer as Priestess
• Kevin Michael Richardson as Beast Man
• Kevin Conroy as Mer-Man
• Harley Quinn Smith as Ileena

Man, that's one hell of a cast. This'll be fun.

It will at least have an interesting voice cast. I am assuming this is the show aimed at older fans, while the CGI cartoon will be aimed at kids. I am curious how Kevin Smith will handle this, but I think Masters of the Universe is a versatile enough to have versions that appeal to older fans and versions that can appeal to kids.

This is an interesting voice cast, Kevin Conroy as Merman is certainly an out of left field and I am glad they brought back Alan Oppenheimer in a smaller role. Mark Hamill seems like the obvious choice for a modern Skeletor. One problem with Filmation He-Man is they only had the budget for a small voice cast, so this large and famous voice cast is impressive.

Speaking of Skeletor, he was always the best character in the old Filmation cartoon, so I wonder how they will handle him. Hordak in the new She-Ra cartoon was made more sympathetic, but most serious versions of Skeletor present him as pure evil:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Monster/MastersOfTheUniverse

The recent DC comics series gave Skeletor a decent reason for being a villain, being denied the throne of Eternia due to racism, but Skeletor quickly goes mad with power lust and by the end, he built a weapon that blows up planets and absorbs the souls of everyone on those planets and plans to use that weapon to destroy the universe and recreate it in his image, so he can rule it as a god of death and evil. So that series gave Skeletor a good reason being a villain at first, but that reason does not come close to justifying all the evil things he does in those comics.

Though it's clear that Netflix has revitalized Masters of the Universe as a franchise.

Edited by Overlord on Feb 14th 2020 at 8:17:53 AM

Someone actually named their kid after Harley Quinn?